Published: October 31, 2012
I’VE been a lawyer in China for 14 years, and have been recently seeking to use the rule of law to achieve social justice. This isn’t easy in a country where legal vagueness and arbitrary enforcement make advocacy a constant uphill battle. But in my career, I’ve encountered few cases as maddening as that of Song Ze.
I first met Mr. Song in the winter of 2011 as part of a project to help petitioners — poor people from the provinces who had come to Beijing to petition the central government for redress after suffering official misconduct back home. His work was purely an act of humanitarianism, but a risky one — a risk that had to be taken in today’s China.
Last November, I worried how the petitioners would make it through another cold winter in Beijing. I’d learned that Gongmeng, or the Open Constitution Initiative — a group set up in 2003 by lawyers and scholars to promote the rule of law — was carrying out a drive to help them with warm clothing. I contacted Mr. Song, a 26-year-old man from Hubei Province who was responsible for the aid effort. I’d never met him but from our phone conversation, I could tell that he was passionate about his work.
There was a strong response to our appeal. When we had a truckload of clothing, we discussed with Mr. Song the fastest and most economical way to get these items to the petitioners. On Dec. 1, Mr. Song arrived to collect the clothing and bring it to Beijing’s South Railway Station to hand out.
We chatted as we loaded the car, having no time for a proper talk. Our meeting lasted just 20 minutes, but Mr. Song made an unforgettable impression. The day after we delivered the items to the petitioners, the temperature in Beijing plunged and there was a heavy snowfall. I was grateful that we had delivered the warm clothing just in time.
After that, I remained in contact with Mr. Song via the Internet and by phone and learned that he’d set up several discussion groups on QQ, which is similar to Skype, to discuss how to help petitioners. Because the authorities were always shutting down such groups, several had to be set up as a precaution.
At the end of December, on the day of the Laba Rice Congee Festival, when Chinese families typically eat congee, a type of rice porridge, Mr. Song wanted to deliver some congee to the petitioners. I told him that if he distributed it in the evening, I could go with him. But he said that in accordance with Northern custom, the congee should be eaten at lunchtime and so Mr. Song did it on his own. On his way, he was stopped by the police, and the porridge was confiscated. On the day of the Lantern Festival, which marked the end of the annual Chinese New Year holiday, Mr. Song was detained once again, because he gave the petitioners glutinous rice dumplings.
After the coldest months of the winter had passed, I contacted Mr. Song and learned that he’d turned his focus toward rescuing petitioners who were being illegally detained in the infamous black jails, ad hoc detention centers that were set up in hotels to hold “troublemakers” from outside of Beijing until they could be returned forcibly to their hometowns.
It was clear that Mr. Song would become a thorn in the side of local and national authorities. This activity put him directly in the path of danger more than anything he’d done before. He knew this, but he remained cheerful.
After the escape of the blind, barefoot lawyer Chen Guangcheng from his farmhouse in Shandong Province, where he’d been under illegal house arrest, Mr. Song took an even more dangerous risk. He drove to Dongshigu, Mr. Chen’s village, and helped the wife of Mr. Chen’s nephew, who had also been arrested, to escape to Beijing, where she went into hiding to avoid being abused by the local government.
Mr. Song’s act of justice was labeled a crime of “disturbing public order,” and the Beijing Public Security Bureau detained him on May 5. A lawyer visited him a month later, and soon afterward, Mr. Song was put under residential surveillance. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
China’s shameless Article 73, which has been criticized by legal experts and human rights groups, gives law enforcement agencies broad surveillance powers and the authority to legally detain terrorism or “national security” suspects for up to six months. It’s that regulation that has resulted in Mr. Song’s being cut off from the world, leaving us willing yet unable to help him.
I don’t know how Mr. Song is being treated, whether he is being tortured, or if he can endure such suffering. I know that the Chinese authorities want to crush the O.C.I., all petitioners against the state, those who give mutual help and protection to others, and all the other virtues Mr. Song embodies.
Like countless other righteous people, armed with nothing more than morality, a sense of justice, dreams and physical strength, Song Ze defied a law that was unlawful. And now he is paying the price. As China prepares for next week’s Communist Party Congress, there is little hope that the country’s new leaders will change the government’s approach to rural peasants who have done nothing more than complain about injustice. Darkness always hates the light. Ugliness always hates beauty.
Xiao Guozhen is a commercial lawyer. This essay was translated by Paul Mooney from the Chinese.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 1, 2012, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: Silencing a Voice for Justice.
